SunGard announces data centre expansions

SunGard Availability Services announces a tranche of activities which have significantly increased its presence and capability in its UK and European operations. This latest investment demonstrates just how widespread growing demand for availability has become and how managed hybrid solutions are becoming an integral part of delivering All-time™ levels of information availability to customers across the globe.

With accelerated uptake of and migration into cloud, managed and virtualised environments, the opening of SunGard’s fifth UK Technology Centre based in Birmingham and a new data centre in Sweden means customers now have access to a network of eleven facilities across Europe, offering 600,000 sq. ft. of operations space:

• TC5 Birmingham
Providing 67,000 sq. ft. of data centre footprint, ‘Technology Centre 5’ as it’s known, is located in Birmingham, and increases SunGard’s UK data centre space to over 400,000 sq. ft. Since acquiring the facility, virtualisation and reconfiguration of the data halls/UPS has freed up more than 70 racks worth of space. This comes at a time when demand for UK data centre space has risen significantly, up 50% from the start of 2013, according to CBRE.

• DC3 – Sweden
Taking SunGard’s European data centre count to eleven is the 18,000 sq. ft. facility, known as DC3. Based on a triangulated fibre network for resilience, this location is twinned with SunGard’s existing DCs in Stockholm to deliver higher availability. As with all SunGard data centres in Sweden, DC3 is powered entirely by wind, in line with SunGard’s commitment to low carbon facilities, and sports a PUE of 1.25. With SunGard’s ongoing commitment DC3 is also accredited to ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and ISO 27001.

“Businesses are crying out for solutions that will enable them to be always on and available anywhere and wherever their customers demand. To achieve the desired 24/7 availability, more hybrid managed infrastructure services and different ways of delivering All-time™ levels of service are required,” says Keith Tilley, Executive Vice President, EMEA & APAC, SunGard Availability Services.

Meanwhile by expanding its Livingston Workplace Recovery Centre and extending the reach of its QuickShip service into Europe, SunGard is enabling firms to address the availability challenges posed by workforce mobility, consumerisation of IT and the rise of offshore-based rightsourcing. SunGard has made these other investments, geared towards maintaining staff productivity amidst myriad circumstances:

• Livingston Expansion
In response to the growing demands for dedicated (rather than shared) recovery space from Scotland’s professional and financial services industries, SunGard is building more than 200 additional dedicated back office positions, taking the total site size to more than 1,200 positions. This is the fourth such expansion of the site in a decade, demonstrating the commitment of Scottish firms to securing business availability. The newly created space is available now in good time for those companies seeking to review their availability priorities in advance of Scotland hosting the Commonwealth Games in July 2014.

• QuickShip Service
Extending the services provided through its relationship with Regus, SunGard’s QuickShip mobile recovery solution will now be available across Europe, enabling it to equip alternative business centres, within major European conurbations, that are not currently serviced with recovery technology.
SunGard’s QuickShip service will provision firms with up to 50 PCs, European keyboards, and screens in flight cases, with stored and ready-to-go assets that can be shipped across Europe. It also includes the services of an IT technician who receives the equipment, sets it up and returns things back to SunGard when no longer required by the customer.

“SunGard is committed to helping customers exploit technology that will enable them to transform their business so they can keep the promises they make to their customers. Our focus is on ensuring this becomes a reality” continues Tilley. “Delivering All-Time availability is based on more collaborative types of vendor relationships, where ongoing consultancy and trusted advice – geared towards delivering tangible business outcomes – is the priority. As companies expand evermore into new markets and new opportunities resilience has to remain constant and unfaltering.”